BRAIN MR IN CHRONIC-FATIGUE-SYNDROME

PURPOSE: To determine the prevalence of MR white matter abnormalities in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). METHODS: Brain MR stu dies of 43 patients (29 women and 14 men, 22 to 78 years old) with a c linical diagnosis of CFS (n = 15), CFS with associated depression (n = 14), and CFS with associated other psychiatric disorders, namely, anx iety and somatization disorder (n = 14), were compared with brain MR s tudies in 43 age-and sex-matched control subjects. RESULTS: MR finding s were abnormal in 13 (32%) of the patients in the study group (ages 3 4 to 78 years) and in 12 (28%) of the control subjects (ages 26 to 73 years). One patient with CFS had multiple areas of demyelination in th e supratentorial periventricular white matter. Another patient with CF S and associated depression had a single focus of probable demyelinati on in the supratentorial periventricular white matter. In four patient s with CFS (ages 34 to 48 years) MR abnormalities consisted of one or several punctate hyperintense Foci in the corona radiata, centrum oval e, and frontal white matter. The remaining seven patients (ages 50 to 78 years) had frontoparietal subcortical white matter foci of high T2 signal. The prevalence of white matter hyperintensities was not differ ent between the patients and the control subjects. CONCLUSIONS: Our fi ndings suggest that no MR pattern of white matter abnormalities is spe cific to CFS.